Troop Stress Keeps Climbing

Our View

A criminal investigation will determine why Sgt. John M. Russell, 44, on his third tour of duty in Iraq, opened fire at a clinic outside Baghdad on Monday and killed five people, all of them U.S. military personnel. But it should not be a surprise to anyone that troops are being stressed beyond their limits.

A Courant investigation in 2006, "Mentally Unfit, Forced to Fight," chronicled inadequate psychological screening of inductees and showed that the military has deployed and redeployed troops with mental health problems. The series led Congress to enact tighter screening guidelines.

A follow-up this month by Courant reporter Matthew Kauffman showed some progress in expanding face-to-face psychological screenings. But still only 1 in 90 troubled troops receives a referral for a complete mental health evaluation before being sent into the lion's den.

Couple this lapse with longer deployments, and you have a formula for disaster. Redeployments and extended tours have been implicated in an alarming rise in the number of suicides by soldiers - there were 140 in 2008 - and cases of post-traumatic stress disorder. Suicides among soldiers have more than tripled since the invasion of Afghanistan in 2001, to the point where they exceed the civilian rate.

Mr. Kauffman's recent story chronicled the suicide of Staff Sgt. Chad Barrett, who had tried to kill himself and was suffering from post-traumatic stress disorder before he was sent to Iraq for the third time, armed with pills for anxiety, depression and sleep. He used those pills to end his life at age 35.

His story was published on the same day as the news of the clinic massacre carried out by Sgt. Russell, now under arrest for murder. Mr. Russell was allegedly ordered to the clinic known as Camp Liberty, where the combat-stressed go for intensive counseling and rest.

His weapon had been confiscated - an unusual occurrence that hints at a high level of psychological distress. He somehow managed to rearm and return to perpetrate violence on his countrymen.

The details of what went wrong at the clinic may close holes in the security system at Camp Liberty and make mental health workers and those in command more vigilant for signs of trouble. But the only cure for what happened to Sgts. Barrett and Russell and too many others is a vast overhaul of a grueling combat schedule that resends soldiers to the front without proper rest and deploys many who are mentally unfit to handle the strain.

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